Participants and coaches from the Queen City Striders program pose on the Houghton High School football field last year. This year’s program kicks off on June 17. (Provided photo)

HOUGHTON — Sometimes, especially in the summer, it can be hard for parents to find something that their children can sink their collective teeth into. Last summer, a summer running program drew plenty of attention, and the Queen City Running Company, formerly the Copper Country Running Company, has found a hit with its Queen City Striders program.

Running from June 17-July 17, the Queen City Striders is a development program that teaches the fundamentals of running in the hopes of helping grow the running community in the Copper Country.

The QCRC’s Houghton store’s general manager, Clayton Sayen was proud of what he and his team accomplished in the program’s first year last summer.

“Last year, I think it went really well,” he said. “Honestly, I had a lot of fun doing it. (I) had no idea how to do it going into it, and that’s my theme here with all the stuff is I don’t know how things work until I do it for the first time.

“You get 10 sessions. It’s not like a race where there’s just one, there’s 10 sessions, so you get to learn about what went well, what didn’t go well.”

Even though the program is for kids, that does not guarantee that things will be smooth.

“By the time that July came around, it went really smoothly,” said Sayen. “It’s kids, so it’s not always going to be super smooth, but I think it went well. (There were) no major hiccups, the weather cooperated, and all the staff had a good time.”

Last year, Sayen and his staff broke the participants up into four different age groups, which he said really helped manage the entire experience.

“Well, the fact that it’s sorted into four different groups (really made a difference),” he said. “We have the Little Striders, that’s the kids entering (kindergarten and) first; the Big Striders, second and third; the Dashers, fourth and fifth; and then the middle school, the Pacers. Having it broken into four different groups, and giving different activities for each group to do, makes it so it actually works. “If you have the 12 year olds do the same thing as the 5 year olds, it’s not going to work.

“So, the four different groups is huge. That wasn’t my idea. Our Marquette store had been doing this for a few years, so they had done it with that format a few times, and it’s like, ‘OK, that’s what works, that’s what we’re going to do.’ That’s what I did, and it worked really well.”

Like development camps for sports like hockey or basketball, the Queen City Striders is introducing concepts young, and then building on that new foundation at the more advanced ages.

“So, the little kids, the five, six-year-olds, the Little Striders, we have them running, doing obstacle courses, running through cones, so having them do some sprints on the track, short sprints, and then, maybe at the end of the day, we’ll run a 400 or an 800, which, for the kids, is forever,” Sayen said. “It’s never going to end for the little kids and even the (Big Striders), those are mostly the same. For them, it’s mostly breaking them up, so it’s not one big group, and that’s more manageable. Having the little kids do obstacle courses, running through cones, little sprints on the track.

“We’ll go on the Michigan Tech Trails too, through the trailhead at the Houghton (High School) parking lot. We’ll do some short sprints, little hill sprints, on the trails there.”

As the kids get older, they are ready for more regimented workouts.

“Then the bigger kids, maybe we’ll go run a couple miles in the middle school group, or we’ll do 10 reps of 200 meters, and we’ll run them through a very fun and effective warm-up routine,” said Sayen. “All the kids are ready to go for it. We don’t want anybody to get hurt, of course. They’re kids, we’re not going to hurt them. We like to warm up and cool down.

“The upper two groups, you’ll have like some track workouts, or workouts on the trails where we’re doing repeats of things. But, they’ll still do fun stuff too, where we’ll just throw them a bone and we’ll play sharks and minnows for the last 10 minutes, stuff like that.”

With the older kids, Sayen talked about what types of specific training they will get.
”We’ll do a lot of form coaching with the kids, because kids run like kids, it’s not very efficient,” he said. “So with the little kids, they’re having fun, but the older kids, because a lot of them are in middle school cross country, or they’re starting middle school cross country, we’ll give them a lot of form-coaching tips on racing. Or we’ll do a set of hill sprints, where we’re going to do four hill sprints, and then we’ll do some flat sprints.”

Sayen compared those drills to what he teaches as an assistant coach at Michigan Tech.

“That’s what we do at Michigan Tech too, it’s just on a smaller scale,” he said. “We’ll make your legs kind of tired running up the hill, and then we will teach you how to kick it in when we’re on the flat stretch. Or, we’ll do a 150-meter rep on the track where they’ll be jogging, they won’t be sprinting, and then I’ll blow a whistle and they’ll have to shift it and sprint to the finish line.

“Things like that, we’ll coach them with you, form coaching, race tactics, breathing techniques, things like that. All stuff that no one really taught me, just stuff that I’ve just learned through experiences, (what) my coaches would tell me when I was their age.”

Sayen said that much of the feedback he got after last summer’s program was quite simply thanks for putting the program together. While that is positive, he has found a focus as he prepares for this summer.

“I didn’t really get much feedback last year other than thank you for doing this, please do it again next year,” he said. “There probably was some small stuff that I don’t even remember adjusting.

“I’m going to have more coaches. If there’s one thing that I’m changing definitively from last year to this year, it’s (that) I’m going to have more, whether they’re staff that we have at the store, or volunteers that are just going to help out. No real experience needed, just need to be young and energetic, really, that’s all it is.”